Indiana State Comptroller Elise Nieshalla commends the Indiana Deferred Compensation Committee (IDCC) for eliminating two funds, one with four percent exposure to Chinese entities and the other that prioritizes environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters over return on investment. 

“These are positive steps to align public employees’ deferred compensation investments with the state laws governing our pensions,” Comptroller Nieshalla said. “Protecting our investments from national security concerns and upholding fiduciary duty will always be top priorities.” 

The IDCC oversees more than $2 billion in public employee supplemental retirement assets through the Hoosier START Plan. At its most recent IDCC quarterly meeting, chaired by Comptroller Nieshalla, the committee voted to eliminate the American Funds EuroPacific Growth Fund due to Chinese investment exposure and transfer those dollars to the Fidelity Diversified International Fund. 

The Committee also voted to eliminate the ESG-focused fund, Vanguard FTSE Social Index. Assets currently in the Fund will be moved to the State Street S&P 500 Index Fund. 

Notifications will be sent to participants prior to the investment changes that are slated to occur later this year. Participants will have the opportunity to make investment election changes before the movement of assets. 

Click here for more information regarding the Hoosier START plan.

At a time of unprecedented antisemitism across the United States, Attorney General Todd Rokita makes clear in an advisory opinion that laws protect Jewish individuals from many forms of antisemitic harassment in educational settings. 

In the three months following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 3,291 antisemitic incidents across the United States — a level unprecedented during any previous three-month period over the last decade and a 361 percent increase compared to the same period the previous year. On university campuses in particular, antisemitic incidents have recently increased again as colleges resume classes for the fall semester. 

“Antisemitism is an evil that spreads beyond the confines of college campuses into the fabric of general society,” Attorney General Rokita said. “We must deal with this ugliness wherever it arises.” 

Attorney General Rokita issued the advisory opinion in response to inquiries from Rep. Craig Haggard, R-Mooresville. 

“Before we can take additional steps to protect our Jewish students and all Hoosiers,” Rep. Haggard said, “it is vitally important to start with the facts. I want to thank the Attorney General for his opinion and support of the Jewish community.” 

Although often veiled in the guise of support for Palestinian innocents, the words and actions directed against Jewish people have all too often crossed the line from legitimate expressions of opinion into something far more sinister — harassment, threats and intimidation that endanger Jewish people’s safety and in fact violate the law.  

“The Indiana Code and various federal civil rights laws prohibit discriminatory conduct based on one’s religion, shared ancestry, or ethnic characteristics in, among other places, educational settings,” the advisory opinion states. “Those laws apply to Jewish individuals as much as they do other protected classes.” 

In particular, the advisory opinion cites Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Indiana Civil Rights Act (Ind. Code art. 22-9). 

“Many of these laws impose affirmative obligations on educators at the university and K-12 levels to combat antisemitism when it arises,” the opinion further states. “In particular, educators may in many cases be required to take affirmative steps to end harassment, intimidation, and violence against Jewish individuals in the educators’ schools and on their campuses.” 

Read the advisory opinion in its entirety here.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is standing up for young people’s First Amendment rights in a brief arguing that government cannot compel students to use other people’s “preferred pronouns” in violation of their own deeply held beliefs. Rokita and a likeminded coalition of attorneys general have taken on rogue school administrators across the country, who now use “anti-harassment” rules to force students into navigating and conforming to the bizarre world of transanity – or face very real consequences.

By Jerry Curry, Staff Writer

United States Congresswoman Erin Houchin, representing Indiana’s 9th District, took time out of her busy schedule to give Salem High School’s “Jobs for American Graduates” (JAG) members a brief overview of her past careers. She spoke to about 120 students on Tuesday, Sept. 3. The majority of the students are in the JAG  program.

Tara Kritzer is a teacher and coordinator of the program. Also on hand was the JAG regional manager Jeff Hester.

Houchin started out saying that her dad was a dentist, and they lived in Scottsburg. Her dad was a good example, as he worked his way through dentistry school.

She added, “I had no interest in politics until I reached college.”
While attending I.U. and working on a degree in Psychology, she applied for a job in the state senate. This meant she had to leave school just six credits short of compleing her degree.

Later she received a job offer to be a legislative assistant. She held that job for eight years.

She said the employer fired one employee a month. This ruined her fondness of politics. She moved back to Scottsburg and drove to I.U. Bloomington to finish her degree. She only lacked two classes for six hours of credit.

She then got married and now has three children, ages 20, 18, and 15.

Early in her marriage to her husband Dustin Houchin and nine months pregnant, she got a job offer from U.S. Senator Dan Coats. He offered her a job as Southeast Indiana Regional Manager. That job encompassed 24 counties. She was the first female and first intern to get this job.

She then started a public relations company and worked at that a while.

Houchin then ran and was reelected to the  Indiana State Senate. In 2016, she defeated a powerful 26-year incumbent that she had worked for until 2022.
She represented the 47th District in the Indiana Senate from 2014 to 2022.

She stated, “I saw lots of good you get to do.”

Then she ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Indiana’s 9th District.  She was elected in 2022 and continues to represent those constituents.

One enjoyable project Houchin pursued was the robot, Milo. She worked on getting Milo while in the state senate. Milo was a robot that worked with autistic kids. The theory was the children would be more prone to work and talk to the robot than to other people. 

When asked about jobs of the future, she stressed the importance of trying to get a job that you are passionate about. Jobs in the future will deal with AI, advanced manufacturing, and general skills.

She opened the end of her discussion for questions from the students.

One question was,” How much do you make?” She answered $174,000 a year. Other questions dealt with how do you handle hate, do you have any helpers, how divided is politics? On the last question she said, “It’s not as bad as you think. There’s a lot of laws that are made”.  

On an age-limit question, she said, “No age limit on the supreme court.” SalemLeader.com enquired about her future political aspirations; she replied she may pursue other endeavors if there was a need.

Houchin closed by saying, “Do the best job you can.”

Houchin serves on the following committees in her present position— Committee on Education, Committee on Financial Services, and Committee on House Rules. She was a very articulate speaker.

She lives in Salem. Her son is a student at Salem High School.